by Edward Schmidt

Created on: November 30, 2009   Last Updated: January 11, 2010

As recent as 15 years ago, getting a golf scholarship to a major university was fairly uncomplicated. Back then, all you really needed was a solid academic record, a successful high school tournament career and high finishes in a few non-high school junior.

Those days, of course, were pre-Tiger Woods.

Since Woods' arrival on the PGA Tour thirteen years ago, golf's 21st century icon, along with other forces, has made the game infinitely more appealing to young golfers. There has been an increase of almost 30 percent in junior golfers since the mid 1990s. With the quantum jump in participation, it's not surprising the competition for golf scholarships has become decidedly more intense.

Junior golfers now must have a strong non-high school tournament record and start planning and preparation long before their senior year if they want to secure a Division I scholarship.

Some juniors competing for golf scholarships and their parents may not comprehend how difficult their goal is to attain. While men's collegiate teams typically have 10 to 16 players, by NCAA guidelines they may only offer 4.5 scholarships. For female juniors, because of Title IX legislation, the odds are better-teams consist of seven to 12 players and can provide six scholarships at the Division I level. There are approximately 260 Division I schools with men's golf teams and 230 with women's golf teams.

For parents of junior golfers, one of the cold hard realities of the evaluation system is high school golf success doesn't carry nearly the clout it once did. College coaches don't put much emphasis on high school events because the courses aren't as difficult, the yardages generally are not as long and the level of competition is inconsistent.

Today's college coaches want to see statistics and scores from respected junior tournament circuits such as the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA), International Junior Golf Tour (IJGT) and various state junior golf association sponsored tournament series.

College golf programs don't have large recruiting and travel budgets like big revenue sports such as football and basketball and thus must rely on other ways to research golfers. In football and basketball the coach does most of the pursuing. In golf, oftentimes the golfer ends up trying to recruit the school so it's very important for the junior golfer to make sure information about them is readily available."

Here are tips to follow:

By ninth grade, enter your junior golfer in local, state, and, or national competition to develop tournament experiences and poise and a scoring record.

Help your junior golfer keep a journal to document tournament details such as event name, location, date, course played, yardage, weather conditions, winning scores, rankings, etc. The journal will prove invaluable when preparing a resume to later send to college coaches.

By November of their junior year send a resume package to a targeted list of college coaches. Important enclosures include an introductory letter, tournament experience and results, academic standing, and a photo. A brief note to coaches with an update of tournament results and a progress report should be sent every three months after the resume package.

During the research process for possible colleges, obtain a copy of the Prep Report compiled by Golfstats, where you can compare your junior's scores with scores at every collegiate golf program in the country. Another invaluable source is the Ping Guide, which has information of NCAA rules plus coaches, names and addresses of all the NCAA, NAIA and junior college golf programs.

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